Give Me a Break
by Skalidra
Summary: Slade's a pretty common fixture in Dick's life, so it's not really a surprise when he hunts down the warehouse of a gang he's tracking and finds that Slade's been hired to protect it for the night. He's also definitely not about to back down just because of that, so he goes in anyway. He's not expecting to beat Slade, but he's not expecting the consequences of trying either.


Welcome! So, this is another of the 100 prompts; number 72, 'Mischief Managed,' with the request for some Sladin. This has a little bit of Sladin, but it's more hints and flirting than any actual thing. Enjoy!

 **Warnings** for : past Tarantula, past rape/noncon, threats of rape/noncon, flashbacks, and torture.

* * *

The cable pulls tight against his wrist, swinging him high up into the air, up into the night. The moment of weightlessness is a glorious kind of swooping sensation in his gut, familiar and loved, but still always thrilling. Then falling, the cable hooks, and he's off again, through the low buildings and towards the waterfront.

He slows only enough to make sure he's not seen as he gets into the warehouses down at the waterline. It's habit push out a breath as he lands, barely needing to check his footing before he's slipping across the metal roof of one warehouse, gaze set on another. He crouches down at the very edge, toes curled down over it as he fishes out binoculars and looks down through the dirty, almost opaque windows. He gets just enough sight through it to confirm that there are people inside and moving around, looking like they're busy and working.

"Shouldn't be here, kid," a voice says, from down below him. Deep voice, familiar, amused with an undercurrent of warning.

He freezes up for half a second and then tucks the binoculars away, looking down to find Deathstroke — Slade Wilson — looking up at him, arms crossed and in full uniform. He'd be surprised, worried, except that he's long stopped being surprised that Slade can sneak up on him. That's one of those advantages of being an enhanced super-soldier experiment from a special ops unit; someday he might be good enough to just _feel_ Slade wherever he is, but he's not yet.

"You got a stake in this?" he asks, shifting his weight to test the roof beneath him, curling up onto the balls of his feet and then back down.

Slade grunts noncommittally, but then answers, "Being paid gives me a stake." There's no movement towards any of the weapons strapped to that orange and black uniform, but Slade's tone drops a bit as he half-orders, "Turn around and go, wonder boy. I'll be gone, so far as I'm concerned you come back tomorrow and you can do whatever you want."

That's pretty much just as expected. For all their fights, and all the bad blood between them, Slade never seems to actively _want_ to hurt him. At least, not usually. Most of the time, if the job's not specifically about him or his team, Slade will offer him the chance to get out of the way before an actual fight happens. Not that he's taken him up on it much, but the offer still tends to be there. Most of the time, like this time, he's not willing to give up on his own job just to avoid crossing Slade.

"Mmm," he hums, "but they're _moving_ tonight, so tomorrow all the actual evidence will be gone." He taps his fingers against the metal edge of the roof, judging the distance and how far Slade's hands are from his guns. "Don't suppose I could promise you more than whatever you're getting paid to just walk away, could I?"

Slade gives a bark of laughter, and he can hear the grin in the mercenary's voice. "You know me better, kid. Besides, I heard you're still broken up with big old Bats. You haven't really got the money lying around to sink into ordering me around, do you?"

"Fair point." A glance towards the windows of the warehouse he wants to be in; calculating distances, his tools, and how Slade's likely to move. "You saying I _could_ order you around if I had the cash for it?"

"I'm an equal opportunity kind of guy," Slade says, with an obvious twist to the words that makes it sound like a pick-up line.

He snorts, rolls his eyes behind his mask. "You know, I probably _would_ pay to see that."

"What? Me being equal opportunity? Got a bit of a thing for older guys, kid?" Slade's voice is still nothing but that easy amusement, and because there's no _malice_ in the words he finds it easy to take them as the teasing they're clearly meant to be. It's just another game they play; words and teasing and the enjoyment of the verbal battle before the start of a physical one. "Or is it the danger you're a fan of? Really fifty-fifty chance there, given what I've seen over the years."

"You'll just have to guess," he teases back, then challenges, "You going to stand there and flirt all night, or are you going to come up here and get me?"

Slade laughs; louder this time. "I can stand here all night talking with you and still get paid, kid. Now, if you want in there, you're going to have to come down here and get through me first."

"I could just go _over_ you," he points out, not meaning it in the slightest.

"Be a hard fall when your line snaps; you're probably better off just coming down here to begin with. Give you a better chance at keeping things even than falling first, don't you think?"

He snorts. "You're an enhanced, ex-special ops soldier. Things are never even between us."

"True." There's a moment of silence, and when Slade speaks again his voice is a little more serious. "You don't have to do this, kid. Walk away; track them down some other time. You found them once, so you can do it again. You don't have to pick this fight."

He breathes out, slow and steady, as he readies himself. "You know me better, Slade."

There's really no better way to do things — he probably can't outrun Slade, and charging him head on would be totally nuts — so he does the bound-to-fail move. He pulls his grapnel from his belt, launches off the warehouse's roof and activates it. It punches into the metal of the other roof, and he tracks Slade's movements in the moments of falling. The coiling, sliding one leg back and turning to track him, reaching for some weapon other than his main swords or guns, and then _flinging_ something that the moonlight glints off of in a way that says _metal_ .

He pulls _hard_ against the cable, lifting himself into the start of a weightless backwards somersault, and not a second later hears the rip and _snap_ of his cable. As he's twisting he puts the grapnel away and draws the pair of escrima off the sheaths on his back. Momentum gets him all the way over to the other warehouse, where he angles himself to hit the metal feet first and bounce off, stretching both arms out to fall into a roll that preserves that momentum and lets him roll right to standing and meet Slade head on.

Swords meet his escrima, and he shoves them out to the sides and then twists to _slam_ one shoulder into the middle of Slade's chest with all the leftover force he can manage. It gets Slade to take a step back, and with anyone else he'd press the moment of instability but this is _Slade_ , and he knows better than to press his luck. Much like sparring with Bruce, his primary advantage is that he's fast and flexible, and if he lets an opponent like this get a hold of him usually he doesn't get out of it without some nasty bruises. Avoid, defend, strike only when there's enough time to retreat, and _do not_ get grabbed.

He falls back, lets Slade come at him instead of attacking, judging just how serious his sometimes-rival is and what else he's got on hand that might be able to slow the mercenary down. Slade's not _really_ after him, so this is in no way personal, but that doesn't mean the other man isn't coming after him, it just means that Slade doesn't seem to be trying to kill him so much as drive him away. It's a point in his favor.

His instinct with situations like this, where he's just trying to get around someone and doesn't have to beat them, is to throw down some smoke bombs and make a run for it, but he's tested before that that's a _bad_ idea with Slade. For one, his mouth isn't protected against the smoke, while Slade's is. Plus, Slade's proven quite a few times that lack of vision doesn't slow him down much; enhanced senses are pretty good for that. He'd hurt himself more than Slade by doing that.

He's got some sedatives on him, but not only would he have to be close to use them — probably closer than Slade's going to let him get — but he's got no real idea of how much it would take to actually take Slade down, and he's not real willing to guess. Especially because his first instinct is that it would take _a lot_ , and the same goes for the taser he's got. Slade is _not_ an easy person to take down, or keep down.

Like most other fights they have, this one isn't really _technically_ going badly for him, yet anyway. Slade only hits him hard a couple of times, and he gets a good amount of hits in himself. The issue is, as always, that Slade doesn't really get tired in the same way he does, and the hits he get in don't affect Slade much, if at all. Honestly, he could probably dance around Slade most of the day if the only thing in play here was his ability to play keep away. But since he actually gets tired like a normal person, it comes down to the game of trying to somehow beat or escape Slade before he tires out.

Not a game he usually wins.

So, why not make it another game? He doesn't need to _beat_ Slade, he just has to get in that warehouse and shut down the traffickers inside. So all he really has to do is get inside the warehouse without Slade stopping him, which is still difficult, but not nearly as hard as the game they're playing now.

Straight up running probably won't get him anywhere; he's a tiny bit better at the mechanics of free running, thanks to his upbringing, but Slade is faster than him and willing to cut his lines, so that isn't the best approach. The best way would probably be to try and fool Slade with a feint, reverse direction, and either crash in through a window or a door. Door's might be locked, and there's no way to know that until he tries one; window it is.

It takes a bit for him to set up an opportunity, and when he does it's actually _not_ what he was planning on. He lands a sharp blow to Slade's chin with one escrima, knocking his head back, and Slade actually staggers a step. So he reaches for his grapnel with his other hand at the same time as he twists, slamming a kick into the center of Slade's chest as hard as he can manage. That knocks Slade down, so he fires the grapnel and _goes_ for it.

No time for subtlety with Slade getting to his feet any second, so he just curls up, protects his face with both arms, and crashes right through the window.

Glass goes everywhere — luckily none of it is big or sharp enough to pierce his armor — and he uncurls so he can figure out a landing before he hits the ground. That ends up being shooting off another hook and swinging right through the middle of a bunch of shouting, flailing around thugs, knocking one down with both feet to the chest. That's enough to slow him down, so he ends the swing on the other side of them with a flip, reeling in the grapnel and grabbing his other escrima again. As he spins around, Slade lands in the middle of the shards of glass from the broken window.

He takes a glance around the warehouse, recognizing the pattern of the pile of crates, and the open backs of trucks. Drugs and weapons, and all very _flammable_ , as he recalls. Usually setting all the evidence on fire is kind of a last resort, but circumstances being what they are…

Slade starts forward, the thugs yanking out of the way like they think he's about to kill everything even vaguely in his path, and he reaches for his belt with one hand. Slade sees what he's doing at just about the same time that he does it, and lunges forwards as he tosses the mixed handful of incendiary lighters and explosive pellets towards the largest of the stack of crates.

"No!"

Slade's weight hits him head on, knocking him back and to the floor, and then Slade whirls to start to move towards the crates. He gets one step before the lighters ignite the pellets, exploding with sharp cracks which set the crates on fire in turn. Slade jerks back, steps half in front of him as the other thugs shout and start to run, with only one — leader, apparently — that is struggling _towards_ the crates.

The explosion is deafening.

Even with Slade half in front of him he feels the blast, the force stealing his breath for a moment; he sees some of the thugs get knocked down to the floor. Slade braces and stays steady, watching the explosion and the fire that consumes the crates. He takes the opportunity of Slade not looking at him to roll away and to his feet, partially crouching and ready for whatever Slade comes at him with.

He's almost positive that Slade is going to be angry, now that he's done some damage to the most important thing; Slade's money.

When Slade turns around it's slow, head lowered and shoulders set in a distinctly predatory way. The fire at Slade's back gives one of the more dangerous looking auras that he's ever seen, even without the aid of all that body posture. He holds his place, but offers a bright smile in the face of Slade's anger.

"I win," he comments, joviality easy to bring to his expression given his years of practice as Robin. "That looks like quite the drop in profits, doesn't it? Hiring you must have been quite the dent already ; how _are_ they going to explain this?"

Slade is still, watching him and coiled tight, like a spring about to snap. "Nightwing—" he starts.

He hears the gunshot a fraction of a second before he feels the pain, and shock comes just as quickly as his left leg buckles, fire spreading out across the outside of his calf. He hits the ground hard, jerking around to look out and find the source. One of the thugs is holding a gun aimed at him, jaw tight and fury clear in that expression. He glances down, sees the blood sliding out from a dark hole in the back of his calf.

Clinically, a part of his mind says, _to one side, clean through, blood loss but likely no permanent damage_ . The rest is far less clinical about it, even the biggest part of his mind sitting at the front, frantically planning how he's going to get out of this, what the likely options are, and what around him could possibly be useful. Unfortunately, with Slade in front of him, that part of his mind is drawing mostly blanks.

"Douse the fire!" a voice shouts, and he manages to pinpoint it to that one leader-type man who was heading towards the explosion instead of away. Then that man strides over, snatches the gun from the thug that actually shot him, and turns on him with the same kind of fury. " _You_."

His sense of being in immediate danger skyrockets, and he starts to pull up, to get his escrima in front of him and be ready to get out of the way if the man actually shoots at him. All of which is quickly foiled by Slade's boot slamming into his shoulder and knocking him onto his back, a second before the tip of one of Slade's swords slides in under his throat and forces his head back.

"Down, kid," Slade spits at him,

He doesn't move, but he does give as charming a smile as he can manage as he says, "Definitely not a dog, Slade."

"Well you're definitely making a mess like an untrained _puppy_ ," is what Slade gets out, before the sort-of leader of the thugs is on top of them, still glaring and with that gun held tightly in one hand.

"Do you have any _idea_ how much profit you just cost us?!" the man yells, gun pointed somewhere in the vicinity of his head.

"Enough you can't afford Deathstroke anymore?" he hazards.

Even with the mask in the way, he can tell Slade is giving him a nasty look. But Slade _also_ looks up at the man after a moment, even as the sword stays at his throat, so there's a point for him. The easiest way out of this will be getting Slade and this gang to go their separate ways; one or the other he can probably handle, but both is trickier.

"You'll get paid with whatever's left," the man says, as soon as he notices Slade looking at him. "Since you didn't even _do_ what you were hired for."

Slade's shoulders rise about half an inch, and he almost snorts out a laugh before remembering that this is the actual goal, and he shouldn't draw attention away from the developing disagreement. The manager of this operation has got some serious balls to be denying Slade money, or maybe he's just too angry to realize the quite possibly fatal misstep he's just made.

"Now you," the man says, speaking to him, "you just hold still for a second."

The gun rises, he tenses, but before he can start to jerk away — sword at his throat be damned — Slade is moving, knocking the gun out of the man's hands with one hard flick of his free sword. It goes skidding, and by the way the man recoils Slade probably hit his hand fairly hard in the process.

"You're not killing him," Slade snarls, with more than a little bit of ill will coloring the words.

"Why the hell not?" the man snaps back, looking like he's a step from actual physical violence. He's not sure whether he'd love to see that or really desperately _doesn't_.

Slade's other sword lowers, though the one at his throat is steady even without Slade looking at him. "Because killing _him_ brings the Bat down on your heads, and more importantly, _mine_. I am _not_ dealing with that just because you can't think past immediate gratification; you're not paying me nearly enough for that."

He grits his teeth for a second, _frustration_ rising in his chest. He almost suspects that Slade phrased it that way on purpose, because if anyone knows how much he hates being looped in underneath Bruce's shadow, and having his worth measured by that, it would be Slade. He is _more_ than just Bruce's first protege, thank you very much. He's been more than that for a very long time; he's a hero and a threat in his own right, not just because he's attached to Batman.

The other man looks even closer to violence, if that's possible. "You want to just let him _go?!_ No!"

"I didn't _say_ that." Slade's sword pushes up, forcing his chin up and his throat to arch underneath the threat of the blade, and he tightens his grip on his escrima but stays carefully still. "But you're not killing him. Not while I'm here."

He can only barely see the two of them from the new angle his head is at, but he can imagine the staring contest taking place in the silence. He takes the opportunity to look around at as much of the warehouse as he can see. The rest of the gang is running around, unorganized but they _do_ seem to be getting the job done, even if it's slower than a real well-oiled gang would be doing it. He has to wonder at where they're getting their money, because usually gangs of this level don't have the cash for this amount of product, or for hiring mercenaries as high quality as Slade. They must have some _big_ backers.

"Then hurt him."

He fights not to freeze up, and cranes his gaze as far down as he can get it so he can look up at the two of them. Slade is still, but whatever his initial reaction is, it's impossible to read through just body language.

"Excuse me?" Slade says, after a moment. His voice is cool, blank, but not rejecting which is a bit of a problem.

The leader is still angry, but he looks less like he's about to lunge at Slade. "You won't kill him? _Hurt_ him. We have to get this _mess_ cleaned up, and move everything out, and that's going to take a long time thanks to this bastard. String him up and keep my men entertained, and I'll make sure that my bosses find the money to pay your full fee instead of telling them how you completely _failed_ to keep heroes out of our business, which is what you were hired for. That sound fair to you, _mercenary?_ "

Slade is deathly still for a few moments — where he tries and fails to think of a way of escaping the blade at his neck without cutting his own throat — before giving a curt nod. "Fine."

The leader whirls and stalks away without another word, and Slade looks back down at him, blade easing back half an inch so he can actually look up and back at Slade again. It's not pulled far enough away for him to escape though, not easily, anyway. He watches as Slade sheathes the second sword, and pulls a gun out in its place, the line of it resting somewhere around his stomach.

"Alright, kid," Slade starts, voice low and clearly meant for just the two of them. "You going to make this difficult on me?"

He swallows. "Well, masochism really _isn't_ my thing, so…" He shifts a bit, and Slade's sword presses harder to his throat. Hard enough to split the skin and sting with pain as sharp as the metal itself. He winces, but points out, "You _just_ said you weren't going to kill me."

Slade raises the gun a couple inches, and counters, "I don't have to kill you to ruin your night, kid. Push the escrima away, hands up by your head; try anything and I'll pick something non-vital and painful to put a bullet in. Now, kid."

He thinks for another second, and then reluctantly obeys the demands. He tosses his escrima to either side, and then slowly slides his hands up to rest on either side of his head, holding Slade's gaze and refusing to betray the nervousness rising in his chest. This is… not a good situation. To put it mildly. He's probably not at risk of actually dying, which is a plus, but there's a lot of gradients between here and 'not dead,' and Slade is a little more pissed at him than usual.

Slade draws the sword away from his throat and steps forward, easily sliding it back into its sheath as the mercenary circles around to stand beside his head. One boot presses down over his left wrist before Slade sinks down to a crouch, free hand hooking something around his other wrist that sounds a lot like a pair of heavy duty handcuffs, even though it's out of his range of vision. Alright, not the worst thing he could be getting tied up with. He can pick handcuffs.

He holds still as Slade drags his other wrist into the cuffs, clicking them shut and then grabbing whatever connection is between them and standing. He gets dragged up by that grip, hands trapped behind his head, and manages to get his right leg underneath him and follow without having to brace on his injured leg. He's less lucky when Slade starts pulling him across the warehouse; he really can't walk without stepping down on his left leg so he ends up limping, gritting his teeth not to make a sound that betrays his pain.

As if Slade doesn't _know_.

It's when Slade drags him over to a couple chains hanging over the steel support beams of the warehouse — pulls for counterweights, he's pretty sure — and frees one of his hands with the clear intention of hooking him to that chain that he balks. But before he can really strike, Slade's got that gun pressed to his low back, and is snarling almost directly into his ear.

"Stay _still_ , kid."

He swallows, but the threat of that gun is too big for him to just ignore. "Slade," he tries, keeping his voice low and placating. "You don't want to do this. Come on."

The cuffs click closed again; he's drawn straight and tall, but not quite up on his toes. He pulls against them a little bit and the chains rattle, but don't give at all.

"I told you to walk away," Slade reminds him, tone entirely uncompromising. "Right at this second, I'm actually not really opposed to teaching you a couple lessons, kid. Like, _stay out of my business_."

Slade grabs his hair, pulling his throat into a hard arch, and he feels the other hand at his waist, pulling at his belt. He winces, and quietly thanks his own occasional procrastination — in the face of bigger projects — that he hasn't quite upgraded his belt to have the same automatic shock that Bruce's does when it's removed in any way but the exact right pattern. Slade almost seems to be expecting the shock, considering the hand in his hair. Or maybe Slade just wanted to pull his hair.

There's a joke in there that he'd be making if this situation was a little bit less drastic. He might still, once he gets the words together in his head. Sometimes the best way to distract villains from their plans is just to be an annoying smartass, plus it tends to work pretty wonderfully to distract them from an escape attempt too.

His belt comes loose, and Slade tosses it off to the side somewhere. He takes the opportunity to study the chain above him and the connection to the steel beams above for any kind of a weakness, since that's about all he can see with his head pulled back like this. He can't _see_ any problems with the connections, which is a shame, but the roof's a ways up there; maybe he just can't make anything out from down here.

He _hopes_ that's the case, cause otherwise this is headed a direction he's pretty sure is going to go badly for him.

Slade lets go. He hears the footsteps head away from him, and pulls against the chains even as he spins around on the balls of his feet to turn and watch. He tugs a little harder when he sees Slade crouch down and collect his escrima off the ground, and casually flick the switch at the base of one to activate the current. He can't hear it past the fire and the sounds of the other men, but he knows it's crackling.

Subtlety gets thrown out the window, and he grabs the chains and hefts himself up into a curl, putting all his weight on them and pulling _hard_. Nothing gives, but Slade is heading for him and he does the only thing he can thing of to do; starts to climb.

He gets about a half a dozen feet up before Slade gets to the bottom and strikes upwards. It's not a hard blow, doesn't even reach him, but the escrima stick catches in the metal chain and electricity slices up it and into him. The yelp is automatic, and his hands spasm and then release without his control, dropping him off the chain. He sucks in a sharp breath, braces for the hard _snap_ of weight against his shoulders that's sure to come. That's a pain he's known before.

Then arms _catch_ him. He blinks in shock, staring at the orange and black clad arms, and that shock immobilizes him long enough for him to get dropped roughly back to his feet. His weight does pull against his shoulders, but not with the same force it would have; not enough to dislocate them or worse. He finds his feet pretty easily, shifts his weight to be mostly off his injured leg, and takes a deeper breath in.

The instant strike to his gut from one of his own escrima comes as a shock, and his breath whooshes back out as he recoils, armor absorbing some of the blow but not _enough_ of it. Not with how hard Slade is capable of hitting, and how little he can do to minimize the impacts.

"Slade—" he tries, in a gasp, and gets cracked across his jaw.

His head snaps to the side; it's a _tap_ in comparison, but there's no armor on his face and his escrima don't _give_ when they hit a target. If Slade hit him as hard in the face as the blow to his stomach was, it would probably break his jaw. He _has_ to just hope Slade knows that, and maybe offer up a little prayer that Slade isn't going to take this any farther than a bit of a show. Just enough to get him bruised up and bleeding before leaving him.

He curls his hands around the chains holding him up, looking up without actually turning his head back so he can study Slade without it being obvious he's watching. Slade is standing in front of him, mostly still, but only a few moments after he starts watching the mercenary starts to circle him. Slow, stalking, until he loses sight of Slade and can only track him by the faint sound of his footsteps.

Which of course is when the other man strikes; a _hard_ blow to his left side that makes him jerk away and curl in, gasping in pain. He's pretty sure that nothing breaks, but he can imagine the colorful bruise that he's sure will be there. The second one comes in at his now exposed _other_ side, and it gets another yelp from him, torso twisting to try and protect itself despite the protest of his originally injured side as it stretches out. He grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut for half a second, forcing himself to straighten back out and not try to protect any one thing. Doing that just invites pain in other places.

He also definitely _shouldn't_ kick out at Slade, as much as he wants to. If Slade wasn't, well, _Slade_ , then it would be a totally viable option, but considering Slade _is_ Slade — with all those enhanced reflexes — it's more likely to get one of his legs broken than actually do any sort of damage.

He's braced — at least mentally — for the next strike, and it's not surprising that it cracks into his left side and makes him yelp again. What _is_ surprising is that Slade follows the way he jerks and curls to the side, and then there's a faint click he recognizes _too_ well, and electricity _crackles_ into him. He doesn't have the air to cry out after already yelping, but he seizes and jerks underneath the shock, forced into a sideways arch that strains him onto the tips of his toes.

When Slade pulls the escrima away he slumps, knees giving for a second before he drags himself back up, clenching his teeth and still twitching from the aftershocks.

He pries his eyes open as he hears Slade move around him, and looks up to keep track of the threat as best he can. Slade still looks predatory, but it's impossible to tell what Slade actually _thinks_ of any of this with that mask in the way, and no words to cue off of. At the least, he can be sure that Slade's not sadistically into this; there would be more gloating and taunting if he was. Probably.

He curls his hands around the chain, grips a little tighter and faces Slade as head on as he can, watching the escrima in Slade's hands from his peripherals. Slade is dangerous enough on his own, but those escrima give him _another_ edge, and he's really not liking having his own weapons turned against him.

Slade clicks the current on in the right one, and he carefully doesn't react. Not until Slade steps towards him, leading with that escrima and holding it out towards his stomach. He stays still until he can't anymore, and has to twist backwards to avoid it coming into contact with him, pushing up on his toes and pulling away, sucking his stomach in the couple of inches he can manage. Slade follows him, moving around him, and if he didn't think it would egg Slade on he'd be glaring at the fact that Slade is making him twist around in arched circles to postpone the inevitable shock.

He also carefully holds his tongue, because he's sure that if he speaks, Slade will interrupt him with a shock. Call it intuition. He'll take this supposedly-humiliating dance over actually being shocked; if things like this still affected him after all his practice he wouldn't have made it this far. Slade should — _does_ — know that, which is a point towards the idea that Slade is mostly just putting on a show for the pissed off gang members to make sure he still gets paid.

Eventually his left — injured — leg falters underneath him, and he doesn't quite get out of the way of the escrima. He jerks at the shock, which destabilizes him completely and then all hope of avoiding it falls through. He shouts at the pain, instinctively tries to twist away but this time Slade doesn't let him, keeping it pressed to him regardless of how he thrashes and twists in the throes of the electricity.

It's not a level of pain that he can't handle, but there's little to no control over how his body is seizing and he knows he'll be sore and aching for days thanks to that. Every sharp, forced contraction of muscle tires him out a little more, and by the time Slade pulls the escrima away from him and ends it he's breathing in sharp gasps, head hanging and his weight resting too heavily on his wrists since his legs aren't real willing to hold him up at the moment.

He gets a few moments as Slade circles him, just enough to get his feet underneath him again, before he's shocked again. That's just for a few drawn out moments, long enough for him to thrash and cry out, and then Slade pulls back again.

It repeats.

Slade shocks him just long enough to make him yelp or shout, to make him jerk against the chains and make his knees buckle, and then pulls back and circles him as he recovers. It's painful, it's _exhausting_ , and every time it takes a little longer for him to recover. Not that Slade is giving him any longer, so each time he's a little bit less prepared for the next shock.

Until Slade shocks him and then just _doesn't stop_ , driving the escrima into his side and holding it there. He writhes, and he's pretty sure he _screams_ , but his vision is going black around the edges and all his other senses are dimming with it so he's not totally positive.

He's not sure what's in the middle of him blacking out and then waking back up, but considering Slade's hand is suddenly on his jaw and pulling his head up when it wasn't near him a second ago, it's a good bet that he wasn't just out for half a second. Another point towards that theory is that he suddenly has an audience; a couple thugs standing a ways back behind Slade with small grins and crossed arms. The fire's out now too, but that might not be recent because he can't claim that he's been paying attention to the fire since Slade started working.

"You with me, kid?" Slade asks, low enough that there's no way anyone else hears it.

He glances back at those other thugs, and then shifts his head just enough to be considered a nod to someone with their kind of training. He can't risk speaking; mouth movements are easier to see. It hurts, but he lets his weight hang on his wrists for now, not giving any clue that he's conscious again. Slade's hand drops his chin, and he lets his head drop and roll, hanging against one shoulder.

He studies everything he can see of the warehouse from where he's hanging. The other stacks of crates that they'd been loading — the one he _didn't_ blow to pieces — are gone, and he can't hear much background noise. It almost sounds like the gang is all done here, and he's just still hanging around with the last few people left. But then he can't see the other half of the warehouse without showing that he's conscious, so that might be totally wrong. His hearing still seems to be a bit off too, a little bit echoing, so maybe he's just not hearing the threat.

His hearing's good enough to pick up a curt, "What are you waiting for?" from somewhere behind him though, and match it to the leader who first demanded that he get tortured.

Slade shifts around him, out of his range of vision, and flatly points out, "He's unconscious."

"So what? Keep going; either he'll wake up or he'll feel it later. Do I really have to tell you that, Deathstroke?"

There's a sharp moment of silence, one that feels like repressed violence, before Slade says, "Usually when I torture people there's a _point_ ; generally being conscious is a prerequisite." Then there's a hand in his hair, wrenching his head back, and Slade's whispering, "Time to get up now, kid."

He feels metal against the side of his neck, and has _just_ enough time to register it as a knife before it's flicking up and slicing a line up almost to his ear. He flinches away, and then — _that_ gave any kind of a game away — plays it up with a small gasp and a sudden jerk partway to his feet. He lets his weight rest on his injured leg for a moment, so he can let it buckle with a hazed cry and drop his weight back onto his shoulders. He thinks it's a pretty good fake awakening, and it seems to entertain the thugs watching him.

He swallows, feels blood trickling down the side of his neck and to the collar of his suit. It's not a bad cut; shallow, so it'll bleed noticeably but there's no real damage and it should close cleanly. At least now he's sure that Slade is just doing this to get paid, so he's making it look good without doing any real damage. Hopefully no real damage anyway; he thinks he can probably trust Slade not to do anything he doesn't have to.

It's a _weird_ dynamic between them, most of the time, but he's pretty sure that Slade wouldn't choose to kill or cripple him unless it was absolutely necessary for some reason. Hurt him, sure, maybe even just because Slade wants to for one reason or another, but not more than that.

He _did_ just totally mess up Slade's job; it's not surprising that the mercenary is a little pissed at him.

He grips the chains again, pulls himself up onto his good leg and pulls against the grip Slade has in his hair. The knife flicks again, catching his jaw this time, and he twists his head away with a small hiss. He gets enough time to wonder just how strong that knife is before Slade answers the question for him, digging it through the protection of his suit and carving a line down the underside of his right arm. He grits his teeth but refuses to make a sound.

Slade shoves his head forward before letting go, and he tracks the mercenary moving around him, looking up only once Slade is in front of him, keeping his head down to minimize the already bare skin Slade has to work with. He really _prefers_ not to get his face messed up; civilians ask awkward questions, and not everything can be reliably covered up with concealer.

That seems to be working out fine though, because Slade seems more interested in leaving him long, stinging cuts through the weaker — _unfair_ familiarity — parts of his armor, enough to make him hiss and pull away, with blood wetting Slade's blade and trickling down inside his suit. His audience is honestly more irritating than the actual damage; they're laughing and grinning, nudging each other and talking amongst themselves. Eventually blood loss is going to be a problem, true, and usually he doesn't mind being on display — a stage is kind of his home — but then usually 'on display' doesn't mean 'tortured' too.

It's a stupid move, but he lets the idiots distract him long enough that when Slade jams one of his escrima into his back and the shock slams through him he actually shrieks, caught completely off guard. He jerks forward, gets caught by the chains, and loses his footing in the backwards sway and the seizing of his muscles. His shoulders ache, but that doesn't come into sharp relief until Slade's clicked the current off, leaving the escrima pressed to his low back.

He tries to catch his breath, to get his legs under him, and only barely manages both before Slade does it again. A little longer this time, or that's what it feels like, and he can't quite hold back the way he shouts and tries to get away from the shock.

Slade steps away, and the pattern repeats. Another breather, followed by a shock, and so on.

He kind of hates that Slade's not asking him anything, or even speaking to him. Half of his persona comes from sarcastic jokes and responses, but if he tries that now he's just wasting precious time he could be using to try and breathe, without the satisfaction of accomplishing anything. He can talk _at_ Slade, but it's not going to do anything but bounce off and he already knows that. It does make him frustratingly mute though, since none of the watching thugs are aiming things _at_ him despite the laughing and talking amongst themselves. And his crowd's growing too; slowly.

Finally Slade ends one of the shocks early, and it takes him a second to come back enough to realize that it's because the leader is speaking again, still from somewhere behind him.

"—is this going to take?" the man's demanding.

He struggles to calm his breathing down, so he can listen in without it being too painfully obvious that's what he's doing.

"Depends what you want," Slade answers easily. "You want him unconscious, I can do that in a few seconds."

"No, to _break_ him," the leader says, like it's obvious.

He has to bite his tongue as a reminder not to snort, and there's a moment of silence that he'd guess is Slade doing the same thing behind his mask before the mercenary speaks again, voice smooth and not _quite_ mocking.

"Nightwing's one of the Bat's sidekicks; you want to break him it's going to take days or weeks, not just a couple hours. I can knock him out or make him scream, but frankly you haven't got the money to put into the time it would take to really break the kid."

He'd like to add an 'and I wouldn't anyway' to the end of Slade's speech, but for the right price? Slade probably would try to break him, honestly. Or at least make a very good show of it; there _are_ some things that Slade won't do. He knows that.

He tracks footsteps, and tilts his head just enough to watch the two of them come around his side, the leader looking kind of unhappy about the whole thing, and Slade still holding one of his escrima in an easy grip, down by one leg. He resists glaring, and settles for working his jaw and taking the opportunity of the break to really check in with himself.

Sore sides, aching muscles, stinging cuts, but out of all of it the worst is still the hole in his calf. He's _pretty_ sure that it's mostly stopped bleeding, given that there's not a pool of blood at his feet, but he really needs to get that taken care of sooner rather than later. Everything else can probably wait, and most of it will get fixed with a couple solid nights of rest and some painkillers anyway. Also a nice, hot shower. Or bath, if he can manage to work that out somehow.

There's some quieter conversation ahead of him — mostly the thug's leader talking _at_ Slade, far as he can see — before the man turns to the few gang members standing there watching and says, "Alright, let's wrap it up boys. One last thing; bring on the suggestions."

Oh _lovely_. Audience participation.

Slade stays still, arms crossed, as the guys shove each other's shoulders and blurt out random ideas of how Slade should be torturing him. Things as relatively tame as shocking him again, to cutting 'bits' off — he rolls his eyes under his mask — to breaking bones.

Until one guy, a little bit more focused than the rest, says, "Fuck him."

He actually freezes for a second, but luckily all of the guys are turning to look at the one like he's nuts, so it goes unnoticed.

"What the fuck's wrong with you?" one of the other's demands, and the focused one shrugs and snorts.

"Come on, like you weren't thinking it. Like you haven't _all_ heard the talk about Nightwing and his perfect ass." His teeth grit. The man looks at Slade. "Fuck him; let's see what's so fucking perfect about the damn thing."

There's a moment of stillness, and then Slade coolly says, "I'm not a rapist."

He almost thinks that's the end of it, until the guy snorts again and says, "Fine. I'll do it myself."

"You're a sick fuck," one of the others says, but he sounds almost awed and the look in their eyes is _interested_ , not outright rejecting. That's bad in _so_ many ways. "You're not even going to be able to get his suit off."

" _Watch_ me."

He grips the chains a little tighter as the man starts towards him, shifts and prepares to hoist up so he can kick the man as hard as possible with his uninjured leg, maybe hard enough to keep him down. This is _not_ happening. He's— He's—

 _Hot thighs against his waist and the deep, steady roll of hips on top of him. His hands lying uselessly to either side as she presses a hand to his chest, the rough gravel of the rooftop digging into his back. Fingers that brush the tears and rain away from the corners of his eyes as she breathes, "He can't hurt us anymore, baby, it's over. It's all over. What is there to be afraid of now?"_

His breath comes harder, sharper, chains rattling above him as _fight_ twists around with _run_ , except there's nowhere to go. No way out of the chains but he _can't_ just lie down and take it. Not again. Not _ever_. He just— He just has to—

The gunshot registers before any kind of movement, and he flinches and sucks in a breath and— _freakishly white skin and a bloody grin, blood on his hands and orange and he can't_ _ **breathe**_ _._

There are shouts, more gunshots, but his gaze is stuck on the blood pooling outwards from the body lying on the concrete in front of him. He stares and _stares_ and then there's black and orange filling his vision and he jerks his head up, fear and disgust and _shame_ all coiling in his chest and he can't do this again, he can't—

His arms are released from the handcuffs, and he falls into waiting arms, gets lifted up into them and it _hurts_ , but the voice that speaks to him is reassuringly male. "It's going to be alright, kid. I've got you."

They're moving, and he should pay attention, he should figure out where, but there's a familiar sort of numbness settling into his bones and he still can't see anything but black and orange. He's shaking though, he can at least feel that. He can't seem to stop it. _Never going to stop_.

"Kid?" says that voice, deep and male and _American_ and everything he doesn't remember from when— "Kid, come on. Look at me. Whatever is going on in your head, I need you to focus and _look_ at me."

The words take a few seconds to make sense, and then he slowly raises his gaze. White hair and a neatly trimmed beard, a single blue eye, undeniably white-skinned and a blend of classic European races and _not_ — Not…

"Slade," he manages, almost choking on it.

Gloved fingers pull his jaw up, forcing him to hold that gaze, but Slade's words are soft. "That's it, kid. You're right here, just keep looking at me and _breathe_. Breathe through it. It's in your past, kid; over and done with."

He shudders, but manages to give a small nod. Manages to push through the memories and the feeling of ghostly hands and the _gunshot_ still ringing in his ears and drag in a slow, shaking, breath. Slowly, as he stares up at that blue eye and just focuses on _breathing_ , the numbness fades away, and finally the trembling goes too. His chest still feels tight, he still feels strained, and he can still hear the sound of that gunshot, but he doesn't feel like he's on the edge of shattering into a thousand pieces like he did. Like he has before.

He closes his eyes for a second, then exhales and looks up again. "Where are we?" he asks, looking around the unfamiliar room. Office, desk and a shut down computer, blinds over the windows and a single closed door, and they're seated on a squashed-in couch.

"Corner of the warehouse," Slade answers easily, letting go of his chin. "No one's going to look here." A moment, and then Slade asks, "Are you with me, kid?"

The nod comes fairly easy, but it's _hard_ to make himself pull back and away from Slade and onto the couch. So hard that he's actually relieved when Slade wraps a strong arm around his shoulders and pulls him right back in against the mercenary's side. He should resist. He should pull away and go to his own corner of the couch because Slade is, at the end of the day, his _enemy_.

He doesn't. He's not going to say anything, but being bundled up against Slade's side is… It's a lot like being tucked against Bruce's. He could use that right now.

"Why'd you stop it?" he asks, against Slade's armor. "Your job—"

"They didn't have anything near what it would take to let that happen to you, kid," Slade interrupts, voice soft. "Didn't much like them anyway."

"I saw that."

He swallows, shivers at the reminder of that gunshot, and Slade squeezes him a little tighter. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

His immediate reaction is to say no, to curl up and maybe just close his eyes and try not to think at all for a bit. But then he presses into Slade's side and steels himself with a deep breath, just enough that he can say, "It was a long time ago, and no one you know, Slade."

"Would explain why I didn't know about it."

"I don't talk about it," is his quick answer. Slade should know him well enough to know that means he doesn't want to talk about it now either, not with it lingering so close to the surface, not with the tightness still in his chest.

Slade squeezes his shoulders again. "If you need to, you can call me."

He turns his head to look up, narrowing his eyes behind the mask. "Why? So you can learn secrets?"

Slade looks down, raising one eyebrow. "Because sometimes bad things happen, and sometimes it's nice to have someone to just listen. No pity, no sympathy, no attempt to fix things or help. Just listening."

"We're enemies," he points out, as if Slade's forgotten.

Slade smirks, and then reaches up and ruffles his hair just a little too fast for him to get away. "Are we? If you were really my enemy you'd be dead, kid. I might actually be just a little fond of you when you're not in my way."

The sarcastic comeback he has dies in his throat, and he flounders for a moment before just lowering his head and burying it against Slade's side again. "I'll keep it in mind," he concedes, without actually promising anything.

Slade's quiet for a moment, and then completely jumps tracks and says, "We'll stay here a little longer and wait out any fallout, then get you back to one of your safehouses and get you patched up."

He should protest. Should point out that he doesn't want Slade in one of his safehouses, that he can handle this himself, that he definitely doesn't need the help of one of his most frequent sort-of enemies.

He doesn't.


End file.
